To Silence its Harrowing Cry
by Someone Who Isn't Me
Summary: The night is almost over, and the Good Hunter has only one final task to complete before she can end this Hunt for good. But what would happen if she refuses to fulfill her contract, and tries to save Mergo instead of killing the nightmare newborn?
1. Adventures in Mensis

Author's Note: This story is part of a series that starts with "A Hunter is Never Alone." It begins right where the previous fanfic left off, with my character ending her co-op experience and traveling to the Nightmare of Mensis to fight the final boss. It's based on a random idea I had while finishing my first playthrough of the game, so apologies if it deviates from the canon endgame in some pretty significant ways.

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It was with no small amount of anxiety that I returned to the Nightmare of Mensis. I'd been avoiding the place, really, ever since I killed Micolash and put that terrible brain out of its misery. I had thought that, by this point, I would be beyond fear entirely, but something about the place just gave me the creeps. I couldn't quite pinpoint whether it was the bizarre landscape, the mutated creatures - crow-dogs, dog-crows, the pigs with too many eyes - or the constant threat of frenzy from the brain or the nasty singing women on the bridge. A woman I'd cooperated with one time had called them "winter lanterns," which was an oddly poetic name for such gruesome monsters. After I'd gotten a good look at one, I was never able to look at the Doll the same way again.

But the brain was gone now, and I knew a way to avoid the Winter Lanterns on the bridge. There was just one path I had not yet taken - I had not gone very far past the elevator that led upward from the Micolash's maze. And so, when I returned, that was where I knew I needed to go.

As soon as I stepped out of the elevator, I heard a baby crying. The sound came from somewhere even further above me, foreshadowing my eventual destination. I climbed a flight of stairs to get to the next level of what the gravestone in the Dream had informed me was "Mergo's Loft," and immediately managed to get the attentions of several black-cloaked figures. Were those…the Shadows of Yharnam? If so, what were they doing in the Nightmare? As they approached, I extended my axe and got into a fighting stance. As they ran up toward me, I let loose and swung the axe in a circle, hitting each Shadow at least twice and knocking them down on the ground. Of the three of them, two got back up. Just one more blow each, and they were down.

I had only a second to revel in my victory, because just then a fireball thrown from a balcony hit me in the shoulder. Cursing, I looked up just in time to dodge another one. The fire was being thrown by a fourth Shadow, clearly enraged by the deaths of his fellows. I took the stairs two at a time and ended him just as quickly as the others. That fight was surprising, but not truly difficult. I continued exploring the area, but soon stopped again when I saw the backside of a giant pig in the distance.

I crept up behind the mutated creature, then slashed downward with my axe hard enough to knock it to the ground. The pig squealed, its legs splayed out behind it, but I decided to avoid the obvious course of action. Being covered in blood was one thing, but I refused to stoop to the level of sticking my entire arm up a pig's rear end. Instead, I hacked it to death the old-fashioned way, grinning in victory when it finally rolled over and died.

Up ahead, there were two more of them. One pig was already a bit risky, but two of them was a gamble I'd rather not take. The giant swine noticed me and bellowed, spitting out a cloud of foul gas. But I was ran past it and its fellow, and by the time they gave chase I was already climbing the next set of stairs. There was a bad moment then, when I came face-to-face with another gang of Shadows, meaner and more numerous than the last set. I got my clothes singed and a slash to my side from a katana before I was able to jump clear of them, and I prepared to fight back… But my enemies' attention was otherwise occupied.

The giant pigs had followed me all the way up the stairs, and the dumb creatures seemed to see no difference between one humanoid shape and another. They charged at the Shadows of Yharnam, who were forced to defend themselves with blade and flame. Both sets of combatants ignored me entirely, so I took a seat at the top of the stairs and merely watched the show. There was something hilarious about the way the Shadows dodged and flailed, completely out of their element, and a giggle bubbled up inside me as I watched the first pig fall down over a Shadow and crush him in its death throes. In the end, they very nearly took each other out. When the dust cleared, there was just one Shadow left, and I finished him easily.

I was still chuckling to myself as I turned the next corner, but what I saw there instantly plunged me into a more serious mood. A woman in a white dress stood weeping in the courtyard. She looked pale and nearly skeletal, and the entire front of her dress was covered with blood. I'd seen her once before, right after I'd beaten Rom, but what happened next had been wiped out of my memory. I just remember trying to talk to her and somehow waking up in the Cathedral Ward under the gaze of an Amygdala… So this time I approached her with more caution.

"Hello?" I asked tentatively. "Are you all right?" (A brilliant question to ask, by the way. Even a blind man could tell she clearly wasn't.)

The woman turned toward me, still weeping. "My.. my baby…" she gasped. "They've taken her away from me…"

"That's your baby?" I asked urgently. "The one that's been crying?" But I couldn't get anything intelligible out of the woman. She just turned away from me and kept crying, staring up at a dark passage in front of her.

"I'll get your baby back," I tried to reassure her, unsure whether that would actually be possible. There was so much blood on her, she couldn't possibly be alive anymore in the real sense of the word, and the baby… Nothing about this scene indicated a pregnancy that had ended well. But I was supposed to be looking for a baby anyway, I knew that much. So I had to try.

I followed the mother's gaze up to the small passage, which turned out to contain yet another elevator. This one went upwards at an astonishing speed, finally letting me out at what looked like the very top floor of the Loft. I entered a circular room that reminded me of an arena, which was never a good sign. Some of my hardest fights during this Hunt had been in dead-end rooms like this one.

In the center of the room, I saw a lone baby carriage. The crying started up again, much louder this time and clearly originating from the carriage itself. After all of this time, I was about to meet the creator of the sound that had taunted me ever since I first entered the nightmare realms. I was loathe to enter the room, but I took a step forward, and then another. Something crunched under my foot, and I looked down to see that I had stepped through the ribcage of a skeleton.

I continued onward, now driven by a morbid desire to look into the baby carriage and see what it contained. I was nearly there, straining to catch a glimpse, when an enormous shadow descended from above. I jumped back as a pair of dark wings unfurled, making the thing look like some kind of avenging angel. The creature straightened itself up to its full height, revealing eight arms and an enormous hood that looked like it covered an elongated head or proboscis. Six of its arms held curved daggers, which it brandished at me threateningly.

I backpedaled furiously and started digging through my pockets, looking for something to strengthen my weapon. I wasn't taking any chances with this thing. I was out of both fire paper and bolt paper at the moment, but my hand closed upon the empty phantasm shell I'd been carrying for a while now. I rubbed the slime over the blade of my axe, making it sing with arcane power. Then I rushed at the thing, staggering it and getting in several hits before it recovered. I jumped back just in time to dodge the first flurry of blades, but was less lucky with the second.

This enemy had an insane reach, able to hit me even when I stood directly behind it. I tried attacking from all angles, and was rewarded with solid hits at the same time as being punished by its wicked curving blades.

Suddenly, the entire room went dark. My enemy had called up a thick purple fog out of nowhere, reminiscent of the way the Living Failures had called down the cosmos to disorient me.

A blade flashed out at me through the darkness, and I threw myself to the side to avoid it. Backtracking furiously, I found myself in what I thought was the center of the room.

The enemy appeared again, this time from the other direction. In my haste to get away from it, I stumbled right into the baby carriage on the ground and nearly fell. I managed to keep my balance, but the carriage tipped over and ejected its yet-unseen contents on the ground.

In the next instant, my world became a whirlwind of pain. I was staggered, then tossed back and forth between what looked like two separate versions of the thing I was fighting. I couldn't tell which was the real one and which was the clone, but either way I was unable to land a single hit until they finally gave me enough of an opening to escape.

I bolted to the furthest edge of the room and crouched there just long enough to use a blood vial, then forced myself to stand back up and run in a circle around the perimeter. This strategy seemed to work, because I was able to avoid both clones until the fog finally lifted.

Perhaps the fog attack had tired my enemy, because the rest of the fight went more smoothly after that. I was learning its patterns, and despite being tired and bloodied myself I was able to avoid most of its swings. What seemed like a small eternity later, I struck the final blow. The creature dissolved into black dust that fell like a fine mist around me.

"Yessss!" I exclaimed, throwing my arms into the air in victory. Still out of breath from the fight, I stood panting in the center of the arena and waited for something further to happen.

I could still hear the baby crying. The sound was quieter, muffled somehow, but it came from the overturned carriage. Maybe the fight wasn't truly over yet. Not until I saw what was inside.

I both wanted to know and didn't, but eventually curiosity overcame dread. With shaking hands, I lifted up the carriage.


	2. An Audience with Mergo

It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing. My first impression was of a small dark shape, curled in on itself like a comma. At first it was difficult to determine where the creature ended and the puddle of blood underneath it began.

As I looked closer, I saw that the creature could be said to have four arms, but only if the term "arms" was used rather loosely. Each arm was actually composed of several intertwined tentacles that came together for most of their length, but were separated at the tips to create the impression of fingers. The legs were tiny and underdeveloped, but they had a similarly boneless appearance. The top of the creature's disproportionally large head was covered in smaller tendrils that writhed weakly, and it had a wide mouth that hung slightly open to reveal tiny needle-like teeth and what looked like a long coiled tongue.

My first impression was one of disgust. I grimaced and turned away, trying to figure out a way to put the thing out of its misery without actually looking at it. I told myself that killing it would actually be a mercy at this point, considering that its thin skin appeared to be split open and bleeding in a dozen places.

I raised my axe, preparing to act as executioner. I hated this part of my contract as a Hunter. I'd never signed up for the killing of children, and I had already ended the lives of Arianna's infant and the Orphan of Kos. Arianna was a mistake, I could own up to that much. She had refused to claim the child as hers, sobbing about how the whole thing was a nightmare and she just wanted it to end. And the orphan attacked me when I tried to approach it, in addition to its role of sustaining the cursed Hunter's Nightmare.

But this creature, this infant, did not attack. As I prepared to bring down my axe, what it did instead was open its eyes.

At the last instant, I averted the death blow, and just stared at the creature. The eyes glowed bright yellow, containing neither iris nor pupil, and it had three on each side of its face.

The moment I looked into its eyes, I stopped hearing the sound of a baby crying. I had known as soon as I looked at the creature that there was no way this alien thing could be making the sound of a human infant, but it seemed to be mentally projecting the sound somehow.

But now it had stopped, and instead it just looked at me silently with those alien eyes. I slowly lowered my axe, overcome with revulsion at myself instead of the thing in front of me. I couldn't believe how close I'd been to killing this baby, this completely defenseless child. It stretched out one of its tentacle-arms in my direction, as if imploring me to come closer, and I felt tears rise up in my eyes. Was its death really my objective as a Hunter? If that was the case, well, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.

Instead of killing the alien baby, I reached out and picked it up instead. I was trying to be as gentle as possible, but the creature flinched away as if in pain and tried to curl up into a ball. It was surprisingly light for its size, weighing half of what could be expected from a human newborn.

Moving slowly with outstretched arms like a sleepwalker, I got back into the elevator that had brought me here and took it all the way down. I found the woman in the courtyard, who stopped weeping and gave a little gasp as she saw me approaching with my cargo.

"Mergo," she whispered at the thing cradled in my arms. "Oh, this can't be..." she reached out, as if to take the baby from me, and I was just about to hand it over when she suddenly disappeared.

Off balance, I nearly dropped the baby, but was able to hang on to it at the last instant. What was that all about? Was the mother dead like I had initially thought? Was she ever really there in the first place? And, most importantly, now what was I supposed to do with her child?

Just as I had this thought, I felt a sharp stabbing sensation in my forearm. One of my gloves had been ripped in the fight with Mergo's protector, and the infant Great One had taken advantage of the tear in order to sting me with the tip of what I had previously thought was its tongue.

I tried to pull my arm away, but the barb remained embedded in my skin. It worked its way deeper, twisting painfully, as Mergo wrapped its tentacles around my arm to keep me from moving. Despite its apparent helplessness, the thing was surprisingly strong, though somehow I could sense that this was its last-ditch effort to survive.

Even though it went against all the reflexes I had picked up over the course of the hunt, I allowed it. Through my connection with the Dream, I was basically immortal. What was the worst that could happen?

Careful to keep my free arm cradled around Mergo, I sat down and leaned against the fence near which the woman in white had been standing. The combination of the fight, the ethical dilemma, and whatever Mergo was currently doing to me had made me very tired. I wanted nothing more than to just rest for a while, and deal with my problems if or when I woke up.

Yes, I was definitely getting dizzy now. The landscape of the Nightmare was spinning around me. Mergo was probably sucking my blood or draining my life-force or doing something else equally nasty. I closed my eyes and prepared to awaken anew.


	3. Escape from the Nightmare

Consciousness returned to me slowly, in fits and starts. I opened my eyes briefly, wondered why the Hunter's Dream was so dark and empty, and then passed out again. The second time I woke, I realized I was still in the Nightmare of Mensis, right where I had been when I fell asleep. I had a dazed moment of amnesia while I wondered why that was, and then I looked down to see Mergo still lying in my arms.

It - she? The mother had said it was a girl, and mothers typically know these things - was no longer wrapped around me, and the sting or tongue or whatever it was had retracted back into her mouth. All six eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep. With a mixture of relief and dismay, I noted that some of her many wounds had closed and scabbed over. She didn't appear to be in any imminent danger of dying, and that meant I could potentially be stuck with her for a long time.

Trying to move quietly so as not to disturb Mergo, I rifled through my bag until I found a half-full glass bottle of water and my remaining supply of blood vials. I drank the water and even a few of the blood vials - a Yharnamite habit I'd grudgingly picked up when I realized there was no real need to stab myself except in the heat of battle.

Mergo woke up and looked around, her tongue darting in and out like a snake tasting the air.

"What, you want some too?" I cracked open another vial and held it in front of Mergo's face. She tried to grab it with her top set of arms, but the tentacles were too loose and uncoordinated to close on the tiny glass bottle. All she managed to do was to spill a few drops on her own face, causing herself to blink in bewilderment. Then, seeming to give up on the idea of picking things up entirely, she plunged her tongue into the bottle and sucked up its contents. I was unpleasantly reminded of the way the brainsuckers' tentacles pulsed as they slurped up insight, and I had to suppress a shudder as I realized that thing had been inside of me for an undetermined amount of time.

While Mergo was busy with the blood vial, I pulled out my roll of bandages and got to work. By the time I was done, most of her torso was wrapped up like a mummy, but all the tears and splits in her skin were covered. I felt bad for not doing this earlier when it would have done more good, but everything had been so sudden and confusing… After all, why would you help someone you'd been convinced you had to kill?

When I was done, I stowed away the empty vials and got to my feet. "All right," I said aloud, unsure whether I was speaking to myself or my new companion. "What now?"

My first thought was that we had to get out of this Nightmare. I still hated the place, potentially even more than I had before. Even though I suspected that the Nightmare existed on a physical level, I still had an instinctive urge to return to the waking world.

But how could I return? The only route I knew of was to find the nearest lantern and have a stopover in the Hunter's Dream, but I wasn't sure if it would be possible to bring Mergo over with me. And, even if it was, I had no idea how the doll and Gehrman would react if I brought home the very thing I had vowed to kill. No, lanterns were out of the question for now.

The only other idea I could think of was to return to the place where I had entered the Nightmare, to see if there was any way to get back the way I came. When I first exited the top floor of the Lecture Hall, I'd found myself in a cave at the very back of the Nightmare of Mensis. It hadn't looked to have any openings or passages, but I'd go completely crazy if I didn't have something to try.

Since I was carrying Mergo with one arm, I had to put away my pistol and retract the handle of my axe. It made me feel half-naked walking through the Nightmare like that, especially with a defenseless infant in my arms. Luckily, the pigs and Shadows were already dead. At one point I stepped into the wrong elevator and ended up in the lower level of the castle, but the little tin soldiers kept a respectful distance from us. I think a few of them may even have bowed.

The silverbeasts and rock giants were much less considerate. I didn't even try to take down any of them, just sprinted past them all and dodged the flying debris as best I could. One of the silverbeasts almost caught up to me, but then it suddenly stopped short and clutched its awful sideways head. I didn't question this, simply ducked into the cave and out of sight.

"Whoa," I breathed. "That was close. You okay, Mergo?" The little creature was trembling violently against my shoulder. Her eyes were slowly fading from a violent crimson color back to their usual yellow, and her tentacles were wrapped rather tightly around my neck. I gently peeled them away before they strangled me, trying not to damage anything.

Once Mergo seemed to calm down a little, I started exploring further back into the cave system. My memories of walking through it the first time were rather hazy, so I felt like I was seeing the place anew.

Not that there was much to see. The passageway was quite narrow, lined by jutting rocks that looked like skulls. The cave twisted and turned a few times, giving time false hope every time, until I turned the final corner and found myself in a dead end.

This was where I had appeared the first time, I was sure of it. But there was no door, no portal, no other identifying features that explained how I came in. I ran my free hand over the surface of the rock, searching for a secret passage, a sudden warmth, the hum of arcane magic... anything unusual, really. But there was nothing but the suggestion of skulls carved into the cave wall, taunting me with their grins.

I wanted to punch that wall until my knuckles bled, or just sink down to the floor and admit defeat. But I took a deep breath and restrained my feelings, reminding myself that I had an audience now. Instead, I walked back to the mouth of the cave, already contemplating how feasible it would be to leave Mergo alone for a minute while I warped back into the Dream.

And then, just as I stepped back out into what passed for daylight in this realm, I heard a familiar voice.

"Well, well, what have we here? The hunter's found herself a godling."

I turned around to see a spider with a human face clinging outside of the cave.

"Patches!" I exclaimed, oddly relieved to see him despite the way our last encounter ended. "What are you doing here?"

"That doesn't really concern you, human," the spider replied stuffily. "But just so you know, I was born here. This nightmare is my home."

"So you can travel between all the different nightmares," I mused. "Do you know any ways to get to the waking world?"

"Hunters, yes, always wanting something. As if you have any right to ask Lord Amygdala!"

"So Amygdala can take us?" I ventured hopefully, remembering the way it had once teleported me into the Lecture Building against my will.

"After what you've done!" The spider continued his monologue uninterrupted. "You've killed his best avatar, you spit in his face, and you have the nerve..."

"Patches." I stepped close to him and raised my axe threateningly. "Stop talking. This trip isn't for me, it's for Mergo. Aren't you always talking about the gods? Here's your chance to actually help one instead of just groveling at their feet."

"Hmm, yes, the child," Patches muttered to himself. "The child, born dead, that should not be alive."

I looked down at Mergo, who was busy batting a strand of my hair between two of her arms. I haven't yet seen her being playful like this, and I figured it was a good sign. "You're alive, aren't you, Mergo?" I asked, though of course I got no reply.

"But how?" Patches asked again. "The Wet Nurse must be dead, and the child should go with it..." The spider appraised me more thoughtfully, looking me up and down as he tapped his front legs against the rock wall. "I'll admit it, you have potential," he said. "When we first met, you were naught but a beast, but now you have godhood inside you. All right, I'll do it. One free ride to the Cathedral Ward."

Patches closed his eyes and began to hum, swaying back and forth. "Amygala," he muttered. "Amygdala, I call upon you..." This was followed by a bunch of gibberish in what sounded like Pthumerian.

My hair stood on end, and I heard the familiar whooshing sound that signaled a portal. The sight of the blue light made me want to run away, but I stood my ground and held onto Mergo as a gigantic hand appeared out of nowhere.

As I was lifted up, impossibly high into the air, my last sight was of Patches waving goodbye with several of his legs. And then I caught sight of the face of Amygdala, all its eyes protruding at once, and the terribly familiar pressure began to build up inside my head.

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Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you liked it :)


	4. The Ashen Hunter

I materialized on the steps outside Oedon Chapel with a pounding headache, feeling like I had been crushed in a vise and then stretched out like taffy. This was nothing new for me, but this time I had company. Mergo was perched on my chest, hanging on to me for dear life with all four of her arms. She seemed agitated, the free tentacles on her head writhing against my neck and face.

I sat up slowly, wiping blood from my nose and waiting until the dizziness passed until I tried to stand. I had thought that the frenzy would get better now that I knew more about the Great Ones that caused it, but if anything it was getting worse with the more knowledge I'd been exposed to.

"We did it, Mergo," I whispered quietly so as not to alert the occupants of the chapel. The blind beggar who dwelled inside would surely be glad to see us, but the skeptical man might have a violent reaction to the sight of Mergo and that poor girl from the Church had been driven mad already.

So we were in the waking world now. That meant we had a chance of escape... but where to escape to? All the gates out of Yharnam would be tightly shut until dawn, and who knew if the dawn would ever come? I needed a place to seek refuge for now until I figured out my next course of action. It was all well and good to kidnap a baby Great One, but I hadn't exactly thought as far as what to do with it afterward.

Honestly, there hadn't been much rational thought there at all, and I was normally a person who thought things through. It kind of made me wonder if Mergo was psychically influencing me, hijacking my brain to make me want to take care of her. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past her. The Orphan of Kos had shown me that Great Ones could be formidable even as infants, and Mergo's apparent helplessness revealed nothing of her true capabilities.

The thought was disturbing, but what was I going to do about it? Try to abandon Mergo in the hostile world of Yharnam, just to see if I could do it? No, I would continue as I was for now, just keeping a careful eye on my own actions to make sure I wouldn't do anything extremely out of character.

Avoiding Oedon chapel for now, I circled around until I reached the stairs that would eventually lead me to the passage to old Yharnam. Yes, Old Yharnam seemed like the best course of action for now. I would find what I needed there. As I walked I noticed two things; That the Amygdala clinging to the chapel was gone, and that the Church Servants I passed by were all already dead.

I looked up at the eerie purple sky, trying to figure out if the night had advanced. Time did some strange things on the night of the hunt, especially for a Hunter of the Dream. Sometimes I would come back from the Dream to find that only a few seconds had passed in the real world, and at other times I would somehow return to a time before I had entered it, as if my previous time in the waking world had never happened. The enemies would still be alive as if I'd never killed them, and the good people of the chapel would not remember things I'd said to them. Made it rather difficult to hold a conversation, so I preferred to simply nod at them and go on my merry way.

Now, everyone along my way was dead, and I thought I could recognize the marks of my own axe on some of the corpses. I walked unopposed into the chapel that held the entrance to Old Yharnam, then down into the catacombs that were one of only two ways into the abandoned hamlet.

The doors with their warning to hunters easily swung open, oiled as they were now with the previous times I had opened them. The voice of Djura boomed out from the tower, mechanically amplified through unknown means.

"Who goes there? This town is abandoned, home only to beasts. If you are a hunter, turn back at once!"

I put down my axe for a moment and raised my free arm to wave at Djura. I was almost certain he had a monocular up there, so hopefully he could see that it was just me and I wasn't a threat.

There was a long pause as the tiny figure on top of the tower moved back and forth as if to get a better angle. I tried to stand in a way so as to shield Mergo from his scrutiny, but little black tentacles kept curling up over my shoulder.

"You may proceed," Djura finally allowed. I picked up my axe with a sigh of relief and started walking toward the tower, cautious of the little beasts that swarmed around and tried to knock me over or bite at my legs. For most of the Hunt, I had avoided Old Yharnam for this very reason, because it was difficult to suppress my urge to swing at the beasts every time I lost my balance and nearly fell into a throng of them or felt the sharp sting of teeth in my thigh.

Mergo didn't like them either. She turned to hiss at the beasts, her eyes flashing red, and several of them fell back and clutched at their heads like the silverbeast in the Nightmare. I picked up the pace, hoping that Djura hadn't seen that and thought I was hurting them.

Climbing the enormous rickety ladder that led up to Djura's tower felt even more precarious than usual, but thankfully Mergo seemed to know to wrap her arms around my neck and hang on to my clothing as I climbed.

When I reached the top of the ladder, Djura was waiting. He stood near the Gatling gun with his arms crossed, looking like he was going to berate me for coming up here and wasting his time... at least, until he got a good look at Mergo on my shoulder.

"What kind of creature is that?" He asked warily, cocking his stake driver but making no move to attack.

"It's a child of a human and a Great One... but she's harmless," I assured. "Just a baby. I was supposed to kill her, but I think I saved her instead."

Mergo and Djura stared each other down, six yellow orbs making contact with the single brown eye unshaded by the old hunter's cap. "A Great One..." he muttered in evident confusion, and I realized that, even though I'd always thought of Djura as wise, at this point I likely had much more experience in cosmic matters.

Djura broke first. His deeply lined face broke into a smile and he said, "Looks like you've done it then. You questioned the Hunt after all."

"You were the first one who made me wonder about it," I said gratefully, relieved that Djura wasn't angry or going mad at the sight of Mergo. "At first I thought the beasts were just beasts, but after I met you I realized they were the end stage of what those Yharnamites were becoming."

Djura nodded. "Yes, it's easy to see once you're looking in the right direction. For most of my career as a hunter, I chose to look away. I wish I had understood earlier, before we burned Old Yharnam to the ground. About the beasts, and the blood, and the poisoned water..." Djura trailed off sadly, clearly flashing back to a dark time in his life.

"Is it okay if we stay here in Old Yharnam for a while?" I asked, hesitant to interrupt his reverie. "Just until I figure out what to do next."

Djura considered for a moment, his solitary tendencies warring with kindness. "Well, you did kill my last companion. Forgive me if I still have some hard feelings about Zechariah."

"I'm so sorry about that, I came down the stairs and he just attacked me, I didn't know what to do, I -"

Djura cut me off. "I understand what it's like. It's a dog-eat-dog world in Yharnam... and Zach was getting old, anyway. Too slow, and his hearing was going because he was too stubborn to take the blood. You probably surprised him as much as he surprised you."

I nodded. "He fought well, though. I could tell he was still a really good hunter."

"A good hunter..." Djura mused. "Tell me, do you still dream? I can smell the moon on you. Brings back memories."

"I haven't gone back since I rescued Mergo," I confessed. "I'm afraid to leave her alone, and I wonder if Gehrman will be angry with me."

"Gehrman is... an interesting character," Djura said slowly. "When I fulfilled my contract, he offered me mercy. The chance to leave the Hunt behind and forget it ever happened. Gods help me, I took it. I woke up and the red moon had set. The details of the Hunt are hazy now, but I still remember. You can never truly escape once you've joined it."

"Do you think I should go back?" I asked. "They shouldn't cut me off from the Dream if I haven't fulfilled the contract yet, right?"

Djura considered this for a moment. "Your situation's a bit thornier than mine ever was. What's all this business about killing Great Ones if the Church worships them as gods? Honestly, I don't know what will happen. But I know from experience that the Dream hunters are weak. You rely too much on the workshop and your own immortality. And this is Yharnam. You'll die and end up there soon enough."

I was about to defend my position and say that being a Dream hunter made me no less capable, and explain that I'd been dying much less often lately, but Djura's attention was drawn away by something else. "Are you sure that little beastie is harmless?" He asked wryly.

I wasn't sure what he was referring to until I looked down and saw that Mergo had her tongue out and was sweeping it up and down the side of my neck as if probing for something. I tried to reach up and brush it away, but stopped when Mergo flinched pitifully away as I touched it.

"I'm not totally sure yet," I admitted. "But she's done this before and it wasn't too bad. No matter what she'll grow up to be, I think Mergo doesn't mean to hurt anyone."

The next time her tongue went up to my neck I allowed it, and I barely even flinched at the sting when it dug into my flesh.

Djura frowned and averted his eyes in what could have been respect or simply disgust.

"You're not helping my case here," I whispered to Mergo. "Can't you do this some other time?"

"I'd consider myself a simple man," Djura said. "I believe in what I can see with my eyes and build with my hands. But I cannot deny that there is something larger at work tonight. I will allow you to stay here for now. Just... keep that thing away from me, will you?"


	5. Return to the Dream

"Demetria. Wake up."

I groaned and turned away from the gruff voice and the hand that was gently shaking my shoulder. "Five more minutes..."

"Wake up if you can, girl. This is serious."

I realized that I had fallen asleep while sitting atop Djura's tower, leaning against his Gatling gun. While I was out, Djura must have lowered me down to a horizontal position so I didn't slip down and fall off the tower, and he'd covered me with his own gray wolfskin cloak.

Djura tried to rouse me again, but withdrew when he received an angry hiss from Mergo for his trouble. I opened my eyes and sat up, ignoring the way the world seemed to spin for a moment before settling down.

Djura was sitting across from me, looking relieved. "I didn't know if I should wake you," he said. "I was afraid that this creature was going to kill you while I sat idly by. But you were still breathing, so I left you alone."

"Thanks," I said. "I'm sure I'll be okay. But why'd you wake me up, anyway?"

In response, Djura simply pointed up at the sky.

Now, I had thought the red-orange blood moon looked strange enough. That it was enormous, and hung much too low in the sky. But what was up there now was simply a monstrosity. The moon's color had deepened to a crimson so rich I was afraid it would start bleeding down onto the earth at any moment, and it had somehow increased in size even further until it looked to be in danger of crashing out of the sky.

"That's... not good," I stated dumbly. "I was kinda hoping the moon would set after I saved Mergo... but it looks like the Hunt doesn't want to end."

"It never ends that easily. The Hunt sinks its teeth into you and wrings you out for everything you're worth. I think you still have some unfinished business to take care of."

"I'm not going to kill Mergo!" I said hotly, instinctively wrapping my arms around her. She made a kind of strangled chirping noise, and I stopped squeezing before I accidentally crushed her.

Djura looked down at me sadly. "No one's asking you to kill her. Or at least, I wouldn't ask that of you. But the red moon is descending. Something up there is unhappy with how the Hunt has turned out."

"So I have to go back to the Dream. Guess there's no avoiding my problems forever."

Djura nodded. "I think that would be the best course of action. Maybe Gehrman will know what to do."

I somehow doubted that - the old man had given me some good advice in the beginning, but after that he had proven to be unreliable even at the best of times, what with the frequent disappearances and the talking in his sleep. But I agreed with Djura on one thing - the Hunt was accelerating rather than ending, and going back to the Dream may help me find out why. But there was just one problem.

"Will you stay with Mergo while I'm gone?" I asked Djura. The old hunter looked unsettled for a moment, but then he nodded.

"It's okay, you can distract her with blood vials or something," I assured him. "Just keep an eye on her. The Dream will probably spit me out again in five seconds your time."

"All right, I will take care of her. But let me escort you to the lantern. Old Yharnam is treacherous ground at the best of times, and the beasts are restless tonight."

I nodded gratefully and started climbing down the ladder, with Djura following close behind. None of the beasts came close enough to bite with the ashen hunter by my side, though a few approached him submissively and all but groveled at his feet. To these, Djura tossed scraps of dried meat from his pockets, causing them to withdraw with their prizes and growl in what sounded like gratitude.

We reached the giant double doors that led to the passage up to the Cathedral Ward. Once opened, I had been unable to close them fully, so now they hung ajar and creaked with every gust of wind. Djura followed me in and stayed behind to secure the doors again, frowning at the condition of his warning sign, which had been split directly down the middle. "I'll have to put up a new one now," he groused like the old man he was.

"Never mind that, can you take Mergo now? I'm ready."

He reached out for the baby and gingerly took her from me, unsure where to get a grip on her body between the many slippery limbs. I smiled reassuringly at the both of them, trying to convey more confidence than I felt. "I'll be back in a few minutes. See you on the other side!"

I knelt down beside the lantern and reached out to touch it. By the time my hand could make contact with the glass of the lamp, I was already gone.

* * *

When I arrived in the Dream, the first thing that I noticed was that the workshop was on fire. The entire building was engulfed in red-orange flames, crackling and spitting out plumes beyond the ceiling. I gasped and ran up to the Doll, who was standing in her usual place and appeared much too composed for these circumstances.

"What happened?" I asked her. "Why is it burning? What do we do?"

"Be calm, good Hunter," the doll said in her usual soothing tones. "The night is near its end."

"But, the fire... " I sputtered.

"The fire will do no harm," she said. "This Dream has burned many times, but is always reborn from the ashes."

I ran past the doll up onto the stairs, and then stopped short right before the workshop itself. Though it burned, the flames gave off no smoke, and they did not appear to be consuming the wood. I reached out a tentative hand and felt no heat against my palm, even very close to the fire itself. What's more, the inside of the workshop seemed untouched by the flames, and even Gehrman's old books were completely unharmed.

I returned to the Doll. "Sorry for running off like that, but I had to check."

"I understand, Good Hunter. Now, there is one more task for you to do. Go speak with Gehrman. He awaits you, at the foot of the Great Tree."

I was about to reply that I was unaware of such a tree, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the gate to the graveyard - which had always, always been closed to me - had now been flung open.

I thanked the Doll for her advice and walked through it. Gehrman sat in his wheelchair at the top of the hill, underneath a tree that towered over the others. As I approached him, I looked around and uneasily noted the sheer number of gravestones in this courtyard, crowded together like broken teeth. Was there really a hunter buried underneath each and every one?

"Well, my hunter," Gehrman greeted me jovially, but I could hear an ominous undertone in his voice. "I hear that your Hunt has nearly ended. But the night is not endless, and the moon draws closer by the hour. Why have you not completed your final task?"

I gulped nervously, feeling like a child explaining myself to a stern schoolmaster. For most of the Hunt, I had respected and looked up to Gehrman as an example, and now I was about to serve him the ultimate disappointment.

"Because I don't want to," I said with as much boldness as I could muster. "I can kill the beasts, sure. They're sick, mindless; not human anymore. But killing a newborn baby! And the baby of a God! I thought you worshipped the Great Ones here in Yharnam, but for half the night I've been hunting them! Something doesn't add up about all of this, and I'm not going kill an innocent child just because somebody told me to. From now on, Mergo is mine."

"Yours indeed, my hunter. And have you noticed that you now belong to it as well? What an inglorious fate, to be bound to a Great One. Take it from me. Kill it while it still weak, and get out while you can."

There was a deep wellspring of rage inside me, and now it bubbled up to the surface.

"You know a lot about the Great Ones, do you? Well I'm not doing it. I refuse. I'm done with this Hunt and this Dream. This is the last time you'll be seeing me, Gehrman. Even if the moon blows up and crashes into the ground, I'm done!"

"Dear, oh dear," Gehrman chuckled. "What finally got to you, then? Was it the Hunt, the blood, or the horrible dream? But no matter. We'll just send someone else to finish the job. And as for you... well, it's always up to the Hunter's helper to clean up after these sorts of messes."

The old man sighed and reached for the sickle-shaped blade that had always hung on the back of his wheelchair. Then he leaned forward and creakily stood up, which I honestly hadn't known he could do. For a second it seemed like the metal rod replacing one of his legs would buckle under his weight, but it held. Gehrman straightened up to his full height, which towered over me by at least a full head. He slotted the sickle into a wooden handle that he produced from seemingly out of nowhere, turning it into a long and wickedly curved scythe.

"Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt."


	6. The First Hunter's End

As soon as Gehrman had stood up from his wheelchair, I could tell he was going to be a worthy opponent. I backed away slowly, clutching my axe in front of me to ward him away. "Come on, Gehrman," I said, unsure if I was threatening him or pleading with him. "You don't want to do this."

Instead of replying, the old man swung his scythe so fast I barely had time to jump backwards. Okay, so we were fighting then. I could do this.

I circled around Gehrman, trying to get a feel for his fighting style and attack pattern. But before I could figure out an opening, he broke from decorum and rushed at me, his blade coming so close it tore at my robes. Damn! Why had I ever changed out of the tighter-fitting Cainhurst set in favor of this Choir garbage?

Gehrman was fast, very fast, and vicious with that scythe. Once he'd gotten close enough to me, it was all I could do to stay out of his way. The man seemed to have a natural quickstepping ability like Maria's, which made sense if she had been one of his original students. But whereas the fight with Maria had felt almost like a dance, this was a much more brutal affair. Every time I turned around, Gehrman was there, appearing in front of me with a jerky motion as if he'd been pulled there by invisible puppet strings. I thought longingly of the Old Hunter Bone buried somewhere deep inside my bag, but there was no time to retrieve it now. All I had was my own natural agility and the prowess I'd gained over the course of the Hunt.

I was cut once, twice, three times, before I figured out how to anticipate where he'd appear next and jump behind him instead. I hit Gehrman with a succession of rapid blows, bloodying the back of his tattered cloak. When I could swing no more, I used the last of my energy to cast the Augur of Ebrietas, knocking Gehrman to the ground and giving myself a moment to catch my breath.

After that, the fight was a bit easier. I made mistakes, of course, several times ending up on the wrong end of Gehrman's scythe and being forced to make a quick retreat to heal. But I was doing better, getting more hits in, and the old man seemed to be wearing down. At least I thought he was, until he suddenly stopped mid-swing and raised his arms out to the side.

My first impulse was to rush him, but I restrained myself. Maria had once done something similar, and when I tried to attack her in that vulnerable position she had stabbed herself and showered me in a spray of caustic blood. Instead, I backed away and just waited, trying to figure out what he was doing. He was looking up at the sky, as if praying to the moon that hung overhead. And the moon appeared to answer his prayers. A strange blue glow gathered around Gehrman, enveloping and invigorating him. He transformed his scythe into the short sickle version and pulled a blunderbuss from a holster at his waist, then advanced upon me once more.

Now his reach was shorter, but he was even stronger and faster than before. I jumped to the side to dodge his blade and was hit with a wide scattered blast from the gun instead, stunning me hard enough to knock me to my knees. I struggled to get up, but I was still dazed and my legs wouldn't obey my commands in time. Gehrman walked up to me almost casually, and it suddenly struck me that I was facing a hunter, one of the first hunters in fact. There was nothing stopping him from doing to me what I had done to my enemies many times over.

Gehrman made his hand into a claw and thrust it forward, ripping through my clothes and skin like tissue paper. I tried to twist backwards and fall away from him, but I couldn't escape his grip. We locked eyes for a second - his face was set in an expression of grim determination, and I'm sure mine was twisted in agony - and then he ripped his arm backward to complete the visceral attack.

I fell back as soon as he released me, clutching at the giant hole in my middle. Somehow, during all my encounters with enemy hunters, I had never experienced this particular kind of pain. It brought me back to my first hours in Central Yharnam, cowering on the cobblestones while an angry mob beat me into the ground. I was almost ready to give in; to just lie on a bed of flowers until my consciousness faded and I awoke at the nearest lantern. But… I was in the Hunter's Dream. There would be no lanterns here. Would I awaken in Old Yharnam, or near the gravestones in the Dream, or…. if I died here, at the hands of the guardian of the Dream, would I ever awaken at all?

I reached for the blood vials strapped to my belt and stabbed one into my leg, then rolled sideways to avoid a swipe from Gehrman's scythe. I gritted my teeth and tried to sit up, but the attempt only intensified the screaming agony in my midsection. Instead I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up with my arms, managing to get into a semi-upright crouching position that allowed me to stagger away. As soon as I was out of Gehrman's reach I used another blood vial, and while I waited for it to kick in I searched my pockets until I found something cold and slimy. Perfect.

As Gehrman approached me again, scythe at the ready, I raised my arms above my head and crushed the phantasm between my palms. A nebulous cloud swirled out from around it, then expanded rapidly until it exploded into a shower of stars. Gehrman seemed confused by the barrage of arcane missiles, and his dodge to the side was a second too late. One of the stars hit its target, knocking Gehrman to the side and giving me enough time to limp up to him and skewer him with the spike at the end of my axe.

Gehrman tried to rise from the ground, but fell back down again. His mouth moved almost silently, and I leaned closer to hear his last words as my bloodlust dissipated. "The night, and the dream, were long…"

I dropped down to my knees beside him, figuring I would just catch my breath for a second… But I was distracted by a sudden movement in the sky above. An enormous shape was silhouetted against the moon, descending closer and closer as I watched. I could make out what looked like a head and several skeletal limbs, as well as enormous writhing tentacles in every direction. The figure almost reminded me of Mergo, only it must have been a thousand times larger.

I had thought that the Dream would end when I defeated Gehrman, but only now did I realize just how wrong I had been. All I'd won was the first battle, but this war had just begun.

* * *

Sorry this is such a short chapter. I do have the next part written, but I was debating where to cut it, because I was afraid that if I included too much in this one then the next one will be either extremely short or extremely long. Such small random things in writing can be a struggle sometimes :P


	7. Hollow Moon

The Great One descended, settling onto the ground as gently as a feather despite its enormous size. Up close, I could get a better look at it. Its skin was jet black, but it was tinged with red at the tips of the tentacles and jagged white strips on its torso gave the impression of exposed ribs. Perhaps the most distinctive feature was its face, which was oriented sideways like a silverbeast's and had only the vague rough-hewn suggestion of eyes and a mouth.

As the Great One got down on four of its limbs and approached me, I dragged myself to my feet and extended my arms in the position to make contact. This was an immense being of great power, and I would rather commune with it rather than fight it if such a thing was possible.

The Great One stopped short a few meters in front of me, then stretched out an enormous - but strangely recognizable - hand. I flinched as it touched me but forced myself to stay still, ready to take action if the motion turned hostile. The hand cupped around the small of my back and drew me closer, until I was uncomfortably close to the gaping hole of its mouth.

Up close, I could sense arcane energy rolling off the creature in waves. It seemed to pulse with the heartbeat of the Dream itself, and I could almost see the way it was shaping the scenery around us by sheer force of will. I shivered involuntarily, my whole body shuddering from the sheer proximity to this amount of power.

The Great One studied me for a moment longer, then shoved me away in disgust. I could feel its anger and revulsion, along with something like betrayal.

I stumbled backwards, arms out to catch my balance. The Great One advanced threateningly toward me, the tentacles on its head lashing furiously. It didn't matter whether it was angry at me for killing Gehrman or saving Mergo or both. I could tell that there was to be no reasoning with creature.

I hadn't been expecting a second fight so soon after the first one, and I took stock of my supplies in dismay. I was running low on both blood vials and bullets, and I still hadn't recovered from that visceral attack by Gehrman only a few minutes before.

The Great One jumped forward, still on all fours like a beast, and swiped at me with its giant clawed hands. As I tried to dodge, it caught me with one of its giant tentacled tails and sent me sprawling onto the ground.

I got to my feet and began my assault, showering its back with a volley of blows from my axe. The creature retreated, then regrouped and jumped at me. I rolled to the side and narrowly avoided its landing, even taking the opportunity to slash at its tentacles as I stood up. I had a brief moment of optimism - _oh, is that all it can do?_ \- before the Great One clapped a hand over its face and sent out a beam of red light in my direction.

I tried to dodge, but the light homed in on me. I was expecting it to cut or burn or frenzy, but instead it went right through me. I had a moment of relief that lasted until I tried to take a step forward and realized that the spell had hit me after all, and it was sucking out my life force far too fast for me to do anything about it. I reached for a blood vial, but it was already too late. The creature had me in its claws again. It stared me right in the face and let out a hideous screech that bordered on the edge of my hearing, and my vision wavered until I saw a strange twisted shape in my mind's eye. _I will find you_ , the Great One seemed to taunt me _. I will chase you unto the ends of this earth._

The axe dropped from my limp hand and fell to the ground as the creature - this Moon Presence - picked me up and dangled my feet off the ground. I clawed at it ineffectually, but it only seemed to find my efforts amusing. I was lifted higher and higher as the thing stretched to its full height, and then suddenly released to plummet down to the ground.

I hit the grass with a muffled thump, my fall cushioned by the soft greenery. Normally, a drop from this height would be nothing to worry about, but to my dismay it was the last straw that pushed me over the edge. Between the visceral, the life-draining spell, and being thrown down like that, I could feel my consciousness fading away.

The Moon Presence ignored me, sensing I could take no further abuse. It ambled over to the fallen body of Gehrman at the base of the hill, picking him up carelessly as a child would handle a broken toy. I wanted to see more, but despite my best efforts my vision went black.

* * *

I found myself back at the lantern in Old Yharnam, my head still spinning from everything that had just occurred. My knee-jerk reaction was to get back to the Dream and fight that damn Great One again, but the lantern was dark and snapping my fingers would not re-light it again. I could still see the faint shapes of messengers undulating just underneath the cobblestones, but they refused to fully show themselves as if they were avoiding me.

"Thank the gods, you're back." Djura said. He had been standing beside me since I'd returned from the Dream, but I only noticed him now. "What happened?"

"Gehrman..." I gasped incoherently. "He attacked me, and he had a huge scythe, and then a Great One came..."

"Slow down," Djura ordered. "You went up against Gehrman? Did he kill you?"

"No," I said shakily. "Was he supposed to?"

"Most likely," Djura mused, looking at me incredulously. "Though old and crippled, he must still be a skilled hunter. How did you defeat him in battle? And on your first attempt, no less?"

"Barely. He almost got me. The Call Beyond saved me at the last minute."

Djura chuckled. "Last I heard, that was the working title for a nasty brand of magic in development by the Choir. You should change out of those clothes, or someone may mistake you for a member."

"But it didn't end with Gehrman," I interrupted. "There was this thing that came down from the moon. It was a Great One, and I think it's been holding together the Dream this whole time. Have you ever thought about where the Dream came from? Who made it for the hunters?"

Djura looked disturbed as he considered the implications of this. He unconsciously tugged the brim of his hat lower down over his face, as if to hide the sight of the world from his remaining eye. "I know that Laurence and Gehrman created the Dream, and word in the Workshop was that they'd beckoned the moon to do it. But none of us really knew what that meant; we never imagined..."

"Wait a second," I switched tracks yet again. "Where's Mergo?" I had only just realized that Djura wasn't holding her anymore, and in fact the infant Great One was nowhere in sight.

"She went a little mad after you left. Had herself a bit of a tantrum and killed a few of my beasts just by looking at 'em."

"Djura, I'm sorry... But where is she now?" My gaze fell on a bundle of rags in a corner. "No, you didn't.."

"I never harmed her!" He said sharply. "Just covered her eyes and put her down for a second. She's all right. I would never be deliberately cruel to a child."

"Sure, just accidentally cruel," I muttered as I stalked across the room toward the blanket-wrapped bundle.

Mergo did not move when I unwrapped her, and and the tiny body hung limp in my arms. I tapped her gently on the head, then picked up one of her arm tentacles and let it drop without any resistance. A sense of dread was rising inside of me - could she really have died while I was gone, just like that? - but the immediate crisis was averted when Mergo stirred weakly and opened her eyes. The dull yellow orbs looked up at me, then closed again. Distantly, I noted that Mergo seemed to have three triangular eyelids rather than the usual two. What an odd way to design a creature.

"Hey, wait a minute," I said, gently poking Mergo until she responded again. "Are you okay?" Even though she was alive, this seemed like more than just sleepiness.

Djura pulled out a large torch and lit it to supplant the flickering candles in the antechamber to Old Yharnam.

Mergo was stirring more now, her tentacles resuming their slow writhing motion. She grasped the upper part of my arm possessively between two of her own, and I was reminded of Gehrman's words to me back in the Dream. Did Mergo really own me, or could she actually be dependent on my presence for survival? My thoughts flashed forward to the future - oh, what a dreadful luxury to imagine a future! - in which I would want to put Mergo down, to leave her alone for more than a moment... I wanted to share my worries with Djura, but I held back. The old hunter had started to care about me, but I could tell he was still suspicious of Mergo, and only his innate kindness had kept him from banishing us entirely.

"Has the sky changed at all?" I asked finally.

Djura stood up stiffly from where he'd been half-sitting and half-leaning against a crumbling wall and walked over to the doors. Their opening let a draft of chill night air into the stillness, and our surroundings were once more illuminated by the eerie purple moonlight. "Still the same," he proclaimed in a resigned tone.

"I guess we can go back to the tower," I sighed. "Mergo looks fine now. Do you think it'll be safer up there? That Great One isn't letting me back into the Dream right now, and it said it's going to follow me."

"It spoke to you? But all the legends said that the Great Ones don't use human speech, and Caryll created his runes in an attempt to translate their inhuman sounds."

"'Spoke' is a strong word. It just made noises and I could kind of figure out what it was saying."

Djura nodded. "I'll take your word for it. Mergo is the first such creature I have ever met. And I don't doubt that we're yet to have more trouble tonight."

I nodded and followed Djura out the door and through the crumbling streets of Old Yharnam.


	8. A Familiar Face

Author's Note: If you haven't yet read the previous story in this series, "A Hunter is Never Alone," now would be a good time to do so. Starting with this chapter, the story changes tone a bit, and it becomes more clear that it's a sequel to the other one beyond simply having the same hunter as a main character.

* * *

What felt like hours later, Djura and I sat atop his tower and avoided discussing the future. We didn't talk about much of anything, really. The old man had become accustomed to silence, and I was playing and replaying the encounter with Gehrman and the Moon Presence in my mind. Was there anything I could have said differently to change the old man's mind? How could I counteract the attacks of the Great One? Would I ever be allowed back into the Dream again, and more importantly - did I ever want to be?

As I ruminated upon these thoughts, I used the tip of a throwing knife -stolen from the mad hunter Henryk a long time ago - to inscribe patterns into the dusty, crumbling stone. I found myself drawing the Hunter rune, but with the upside-down figure grasped in the claw of an enormous beast. Or I would carve arrows, arcing through the air or lodged inside an Oedon Writhe. I was no runesmith, that was for sure. I was a terrible artist, and my medium didn't particularly lend itself to detail or originality. But I kept doodling, feeding the desire to somehow capture the relentless sense of pursuit that the Moon Presence had communicated to me in the Dream.

"Intruder below," Djura announced tersely, breaking the silence. He had been constantly scanning the city below with his monocular, which I had found to be vaguely paranoid but did not comment on. Now, I was glad he'd done it.

"Let me see," I said, taking out my own monocular and squinting through its lens. The great doors that led into Old Yharnam hung open again, even though I could have sworn Djura had closed them earlier. At first, I couldn't see who had opened the doors, but then I caught sight of a small figure darting between two statues in the courtyard below. "Look at him hiding. I think he knows you have a gun."

"Indeed," Djura observed. "Well, no need for a warning then." He strode over to the mounted gun and tinkered with it for a moment, then unleashed a rain of fire upon the hapless intruder.

"Well this feels different," I said. "I've never gotten a good look at this thing from up here. I'm usually the one being shot at."

"My apologies, girl, but I had no choice but to shoot when you came. You ignored a written warning and didn't listen when I told you to turn back. Has anyone ever told you you're a bit stubborn?"

"I wouldn't know," I said, unpleasantly reminded of the many holes in my memory.

"Damn it!" Djura cursed suddenly. "I got him a few times, but he's too close now. Out of my range."

The strange hunter had run the paths of Old Yharnam like he knew them by heart, navigating through the courtyard and the maze of rickety walkways that led up to the tower. Now he had reached us, and judging from the sound of boots on the ladder he was climbing up to meet us.

Djura turned away from the gun and loaded his stake driver, cocking the mechanism in preparation for releasing the wide metal rod with a harpoon at its tip. I picked up my axe from the ground and held it in its short form, ready for close range combat. I tried to put Mergo down in its place so I would have two free hands, but she wasn't having it. I stopped trying to peel off her tentacles from around my arm and allowed her to stay. Together, the three of us waited anxiously to see what this intruder would do when he reached us.

As the interloper's head rose up over the top of the ladder, Mergo suddenly twisted in my arms and glared straight at the man as her eyes flashed crimson.

The climber let out a stifled "Oh, fuck," and immediately ducked down below the surface of the tower. I could hear him make a rapid slide down the ladder and come to a stop at the bottom, and then a second later he moaned in obvious pain.

Something about his face, even seen for so short a time, struck me as extremely familiar.

"Djura, take the baby," I said, placing Mergo in his arms before he could protest. "I'm going to go see if he's okay."

"I wouldn't advise that," Djura said grimly, but he accepted Mergo without complaint.

I slid down the ladder almost as quickly as the other Hunter and came to an abrupt stop at the bottom. By this time, the man was already recovering, dusting himself off as he wiped the blood from his face. He glanced up at me, and for the first time we got a good look at each other.

"Demetria?" He asked incredulously, an expression of hurt and bewilderment crossing his face for a moment before he composed himself enough to look glad to see me.

"Sean, it was you!" I exclaimed, automatically reaching out a hand to clasp his. He took it gingerly, as if he was afraid I would contaminate him somehow, but allowed me to pull him to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

He paused before answering, and I took the moment to examine how he'd changed in the scant hours since I had last seen him.

Even though I had cooperated with several other hunters during this long night, Sean had been the most recent. In a moment of personal darkness between defeating Micolash and saving Mergo, I had rung my Small Resonant Bell and found myself in the world of another hunter, one who was just starting out on his journey. I had gotten to know Sean as I helped him defeat his world's version of Vicar Amelia and the Witches of Hemwick. Just as the two of us were becoming friends, I'd been forced to return to my own world without a reliable way of ever connecting with him again.

Sean was still the same gangly blonde young man I had met before, but it was clear that much more time had passed for him than it had for me since the last time we had met. Instead of the generic hunter outfit, Sean now wore the garb of an Executioner, though thankfully without the conical gold helmet that I associated with bloodlust and madness. He carried a moonlight blade rather than the Ludwig's blade I'd seen him buy when we cooperated, meaning he had already paid a visit to the Hunter's Nightmare. But what had changed most was his eyes. Where before they were wide with fear and naïveté, or occasionally glinting with mischief, now his blue-eyed gaze was flat and dull, appearing to look through me rather than at me. I was afraid that someone, somewhere, had already broken his spirit.

"Come on," I prompted gently despite my growing worry and suspicion. "You can tell me. How'd you get here when I wasn't even ringing my bell?"

"Gehrman sent me," Sean admitted, still not looking me in the eye. "He said that before he released me from the Hunt, there was still one more thing that I should do."

"And what would that be?" I asked even though I didn't want to hear the answer.

"I'm supposed to kill a monster from another world because that world's hunter can't do it. Gehrman told me that the beast has taken control of the Hunter. That they're no more than a puppet for it." His voice was dull with resignation, as if he was dismayed by what he was saying but still believed it to be true.

"Wait a second there," I said in righteous indignation. "That's ridiculous. Someone's been feeding you lies."

"Prove it," Sean challenged, his hand on the hilt of his sword. "I saw you up there, with that thing. How do I know you're not just an illusion, or an imposter, or hypnotized by its magic? That thing induces frenzy! But I saw you up there, holding it like a baby!"

"Mergo _is_ a baby, Sean," I reminded him. "And she only causes frenzy when she feels threatened. She wouldn't do it unless she thinks you might hurt her. What would anyone think, seeing you barging in like that without any warning?"

"Are you alive down there?" Djura called down from the tower.

"Everything's okay!" I yelled back. I looked up to see Djura peeking over the edge of the tower, looking drawn and suspicious. He was clearly ready to back me up if things started going south.

"And you're friends with that guy," Sean complained. "How'd you ever get him to stop shooting you?"

"You have to go to Yahar'gul first," I started. "And approach from the back of the tower, where he can't see you, and then you just have to convince him that -"

"Never mind," Sean said harshly. "I don't actually care. Now what? Are you going to let me up that tower? I really don't want to fight you, but I will if I have to."

"Wait a second," I implored. "You're doing that thing again. Where you rush into something without thinking. Can you just... wait here a minute? Let me explain."

Sean huffed in impatience and fingered his sword again, clearly itching to use it on something. But after a moment he relaxed slightly and allowed me to talk.

"What do you know about the Great Ones?" I began.

"They're bastards," he promptly replied. "I've killed that big one, the walnut lord. And the one that looks like it has, uh, female parts for a mouth."

I smirked at "walnut lord" and was reassured that Sean still had the same penchant for odd names that had rather charmed me last time we'd met.

"You mean Amygdala and Ebrietas. I've killed them both too. But now I've realized that means they never really died, just lost their physical presence in this world. And they're not as bad as you'd think, actually. Amygdala forgave me. Or maybe it just likes Mergo. But it did me a huge favor even after I'd destroyed it in the Nightmare Frontier."

"They started the beast plague," Sean pointed out. "And who knows what they're really like? They don't care about us humans!"

"All valid points," I agree. "But the plague was brought on by the Church exploiting Ebrietas - honestly, did she look happy down in that cave? - and even though we can't tell what they're thinking, the Great Ones do care. Did you know that one of them made the Hunter's Dream?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," Sean said, looking disturbed at the thought. His expression made me glad that I hadn't mentioned my true feelings toward the Moon Presence and its manipulative nature. "But that doesn't change what we're supposed to do. Remember the lecture building? That note there, telling us to hunt the Great Ones? Or how we woke up after killing Rom and we knew we had to silence that nightmare newborn?"

"Yes, and I do remember. But who do you think put that thought in our heads? My bet is on the Moon Presence; that Great One from the Dream. Don't play into its hands, Sean. I think it just wants to get rid of the competition."

"You just proved your own point," he muttered. "Who says it's any of our business to be involved in their power struggles?"

"Yes, exactly!" I agreed. "And that's what I'm saying here. The whole thing with the nightmare newborn was the Moon Presence's doing. You don't have to listen to it, Sean. And Gehrman's not much help either. Just leave Mergo alone."

"Too late for that in my world," he said darkly. "I killed its nanny and the thing shut up pretty quickly."

I felt a moment of sadness for this counterpart to the Mergo in my world. How many different parallel universes were there, anyway? How many manifestations of each Great One? Did Mergo know that somewhere, another version of her had died?

With some effort, I pulled myself away from these questions and back into the current reality. "Yes, but you can still affect _my_ world. Just... walk away from this, Sean. Go back and tell Gehrman you're not the right man for the job. Maybe he'll show you mercy after all, and you can wake up and forget this ever happened."

Sean fidgeted, considering my choice, but what he said next surprised me. "Somehow I doubt that'll happen. I won't just get away from all this if I go back to my own world. Can't I just stay here with you instead?"


	9. The Gate and the Key

"I don't like this," Djura whispered furiously. "Who is this man to you, that he appears out of nowhere and you offer him a place in my town without asking?"

"I am asking, Djura. That's what I'm doing now. Sean and I cooperated earlier. He's a bit rash, but maybe we should give him a chance."

Djura huffed and turned away from me, looking out over the rooftops. "I don't trust him. Something about him seems wrong."

I wondered if, on some level, Djura was aware of what Sean had done to his counterpart. When I first met Sean, he had actually bragged about pushing Djura off the tower... but that didn't automatically make him a bad person, did it? We had both done some questionable things in the name of the Hunt.

"Well, if he wants to stay, he should make himself useful," Djura said finally. "Send him to scavenge some blood vials and bullets, or maybe even find some food somewhere. My stores are getting low."

Agreeing, I descended the ladder to where Sean stood waiting. He had looked relaxed, idly fidgeting with the metal buckles on his gauntlets, but at the sight of me he snapped to attention and threw an arm forward to shield his face.

I didn't understand what had prompted this reaction until I remembered that I'd picked up Mergo again at the top of the tower. I stepped backward out of respect, turning to the side to put my own body as a barrier between Sean and Mergo.

"Djura says you can stay," I told him a minute or so later, when he had realized he was in no danger of frenzy and had somewhat gotten used to the sight of Mergo. "But would you be able to do us a favor? We're running low on supplies and Djura asked if you could get some more."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Just the usual," I said. "Blood vials, bullets, any food if you can find it. Sorry we're sending you to do the grunt work, but I think Djura wants you to prove you can be trusted."

"I guess I'd be worried too," Sean allowed. "Sure, I can go do some farming. Want to come with me?"

I was about to agree enthusiastically, but then I remembered Mergo. I didn't want to leave her alone with Djura again for more than a few minutes, but would I really be justified in roaming around Yharnam and putting her into harm's way?

"I might have to pass," I said reluctantly, "I can't leave Mergo alone, and if something happens she might get hurt or make me less help in a fight."

"So instead you'll let me go alone," he groused. "You're no fun anymore."

"Sorry," I shrugged and tried to look apologetic. "But you look like you can take care of yourself."

"Sure, I guess that's all right." Instead of taking it as a compliment, Sean still looked disappointed, and he stalked off without saying anything further. I instantly felt bad for refusing to go with him - after all, it would be just like old times! - but I was acutely conscious of the new weight that rested on my shoulders. As if sensing what I was thinking, Mergo leaned close to me and nestled against my arm. Sighing, I climbed back up to the tower to join Djura in my new position of keeping watch atop the tower.

When Sean returned, he was not empty-handed. He had pilfered more than blood vials, but whole bottles of the stuff, which we used to refill our empty stores. He had also found some bullets being hoarded by the old men in wheelchairs that seemed to make up half of Yharnam's population, and even several stale loaves of bread in an abandoned bakery. I hadn't had much need for food on the night of the hunt, what with returning to the Dream so often, but now I found myself hungry for the first time that I clearly remembered. Djura and I split some bread between the two of us - Sean, still fresh from the Dream, declined his share - and offered Mergo blood from one of the bottles. There was still some uneasiness in the atmosphere as Djura looked at Sean and Sean looked at Mergo, but I thought that the tensions might be beginning to ease.

"So," I said between bites of bread, "Do you think they'll send someone else after us?"

"I wouldn't doubt it," said Djura.

"It'd be kind of funny," Sean replied. "If they kept sending people and you kept getting them to stay here. We could repopulate Yharnam!" I suppressed a giggle, imagining a chain of hunters each sent to retrieve the other. But I wasn't sure I liked the implications of the second part of his statement. "Or we could just leave…" he continued. "Seriously, why do we need to wait here for the next hunter? Who says we can't just walk out of Yharnam, anyway?"

"I've tried a couple times," I said thoughtfully. "But the gates in Central Yharnam were always locked, and so much of the city has walls or water around it…"

Djura chose that moment to clear his throat. "Gates are an obstacle, indeed. But…" And here he smiled, just a hint of what must have once been a devilish grin. "Are they built to withstand explosives?"


	10. Keep Your Friends Close

The gates, it turned out, _were_ built to withstand explosives. Djura had unleashed his considerable creativity on the only real exit from Yharnam, which was a fifteen-foot tall monstrosity surrounded by stone walls and sealed by a grating of dense metal bars. Perhaps these bars were a little blackened, but the gate still stood. Djura had started with Molotovs, lobbing them at what he considered to be weak spots in the structure. Then he had moved up to powders, and finally solid explosives with fuses, but none of these did anything to disturb the integrity of the structure. Djura had also made Sean lug over his pet project, a handheld version of a cannon, and together they fired the thing at the gate. Maybe the bars were dented very slightly, but that was all. The cannonball bounced off in a shower of sparks, forcing the men to jump away to avoid being hit by its recoiling force. Even though I was standing at a safe distance, my ears rang from the sound of its impact and Mergo made it known that she didn't like all the noise and commotion.

Even after several more trials, the gate appeared to be damn near indestructible. I was beginning to fear that some stranger force than iron and steel was at work here. Maybe the influence of the Moon Presence did not extend beyond Yharnam, and therefore it was keeping us trapped here until we fulfilled its desires?

Sean may have been coming to a similar conclusion, based on the way he stood with his arms crossed, audibly grinding his teeth in frustration. Earlier, when Djura's latest experiment had failed, Sean had literally thrown himself at the gate from a running start, and had managed to climb nearly all the way up by gripping the bars in a show of raw strength. But then he came to the barbed spires at the top, and he was forced to either let go or impale himself in an effort to climb up and over the edge. Whoever had planned this city had thought of everything in an attempt to protect Yharnam from outside threats and contain the healing blood of the city within.

Djura didn't want to give up, but after several hours of trying Sean and I were ready to move on. "We can try again later," I consoled him. "Surely you'll think of something."

"Maybe if I increase the temperature of the flame," Djura was muttering to himself. "If only I knew what metal was in these bars!"

"Is it not just iron?" I asked curiously.

"Iron would have broken long ago. And even steel should be showing a mark by now. I can't help but wonder if it could be… No, surely not. It would be a waste of the material, and they wouldn't have enough of it for an entire gate." Sean and I must have looked confused, because Djura explained further. "Siderite," he clarified. "A mineral that can be drawn out of the rocks that fall from the heavens. It is said that it is nearly unbreakable, and can sever the ties between dreams."

"That's probably just an old legend," Sean put in. "Sounds too good to be true."

"I thought so as well, but that was before I saw Gehrman wielding a blade forged of the metal. I think Eileen's blades have some alloy of it as well. Speaking of, have either of you met her during the Hunt? She can often be found flapping around Central Yharnam, looking for blood-drunks to dispose of."

Sean looked straight at Djura, while I glanced downward to avoid his gaze. "I knew her, a little," I said hesitantly. "I met her while I was just starting out, and she gave me some good advice. Later I saw her fighting Henryk when he went mad, but I didn't know who either of them were, and I didn't know what to do… Then I recognized her cloak and tried to help, but she was hurt already, and he was too strong…" I trailed off, unable to continue past the lump in my throat.

When I had realized it was Eileen lying there dead, Eileen who had been the first friendly person I had talked to in Yharnam - for I had not thought to speak to Gilbert the first time I walked past his lonely window - I had nearly gone mad myself for a time. I'd charged at Henryk without sparing a thought to strategy, and promptly found myself on the wrong end of his saw cleaver. I died, and when I woke I had immediately come at him again, fighting like a mad thing until I'd fallen. Again and again I fought the small-statured man in yellow, neither of us speaking a word to each other, until finally a spark of my old intellect had awoken and I decided to end him by throwing poison knives from the rooftops. That had been a defining moment for me as a hunter, but certainly not in a way I was proud of. I had realized that inaction could have deadly consequences, and I'd gotten the first inkling of how to handle significantly stronger opponents with cleverness rather than brute force. The two lessons may have occasionally contradicted each other, but I learned them both all the same. Still, though Eileen was the first innocent person I had allowed to die on my watch, she was far from the last.

Djura looked crestfallen, and he didn't speak for a long time. "That's a damn shame," he said finally. "I knew them both, once, back in the days of the Workshop. Fine hunters, but it happens to the best of us."

"That's terrible," Sean said, but without much conviction and sympathy. "But we have to focus on what's going on right now. Are there any other ways out of this city?"

Djura visibly pulled himself together and considered the question. "Yharnam is located in a valley between two mountains," he said as if reciting a lesson from a schoolbook. "Much of it is surrounded by the lake, wrapping around Hemwick and marking a boundary to Byrgenwerth and the Forbidden Woods. You could swim for hours and never reach the other side. Cathedral Ward is located in the heart of the city, and Old Yharnam lies beneath it. The mountains are too steep to climb from there, and there are no easy passes between them. The Unseen Village - don't look so shocked, why wouldn't I know of such a thing? A man should meet his neighbors, after all - is surrounded by walls on all sides, taller even than those in Central Yharnam. This city was built to be defended, and to contain its secrets within. I'm afraid the gates are our only logical way out at the moment."

Sean sighed, putting a hand up to his face as if he had a headache or was meditating upon the Hunter's Mark. Then he sat down right there on the street within view of the obstinate gate. Something about his position reminded me of an enormous child having a tantrum.

I went over and sat down beside him, but he flinched away from me before he could stop himself. "Still having issues with Mergo, I see."

"Just a bit. Might take a while to get used to after it frenzied me." I restrained myself from correcting his pronouns, considering myself lucky he tolerated our presence this closely. "I can't believe there's not a way out of here," he continued morosely. "If we can't end the night, and we can't leave the city, then what the hell are we supposed to do with ourselves?"

I found myself at a loss for words. "I don't know… Maybe Djura will think of something else later, something more powerful that can blast through the gate or maybe even the whole wall. Or we can go back to Yahar'gul and look for any gaps, or get some ropes and try to climb the mountains up out of Old Yharnam…" I knew as I said these things that they were pipe dreams; that even if we tried to act on them something would always stop us at the last moment. "Sean, I know this shouldn't be your problem. You only got called here because of all the business with Mergo, and I'm sorry I got you into this mess."

"It's no problem," he said distantly, his eyes not meeting mine and his mind clearly elsewhere. "We'll figure something out."

Before I could say anything further, Mergo began squirming in my arms. She'd been getting better at gripping and holding on to me of her own accord, so I sometimes forgot I was holding her, but now she made her presence known. For the first time since I'd rescued her, Mergo actually seemed to want me to put her down, judging by the way she was reaching down toward the ground. After a moment of consideration, I allowed it, and gently set her down onto a small patch of grass beside the road. She lay there for a second, then turned over and formed all her tentacles into four cohesive limbs. Using these to push off against the ground, she actually managed to raise her body a few inches off the ground and wobble there for a few seconds, before collapsing back down.

She tried again and got further this time, taking a few tentative crawling steps. I realized that she was using her legs as well, which were solid limbs rather than tentacles, and what I had thought was a terrible defect in them was simply the fact that the joints corresponding to her knees could bend backwards. She didn't have much in the way of feet, but she appeared to be gripping the ground with claws that looked like tiny retractable blades.

It seemed that Mergo could creep across the ground this way, looking rather insectoid with her black body – still half-covered in bandages from earlier – and six limbs. She crawled in a narrow semicircle around me, staying near the side of my body that faced away from Sean. After a minute of this she lay down, too tired to continue, and I scooped her back up again. I was unable to keep the smile off my face, as delighted as a mother whose own child had taken its first steps.

Djura had been watching, and he nodded appreciatively at the spectacle. Sean said nothing, probably still brooding about the gate. He sat casually on the street with his hands on his knees, but his face made me think of clouds gathering before a storm.


	11. And Your Enemies Closer

Who knew how time passed when the night never ended? When the Hunt had descended upon Yharnam, the sky became alternately static or unpredictable, impossible to use as a gauge of how far the night had progressed. I did not own a watch or timepiece, and all the small clocks I'd seen had stopped at roughly five in the afternoon. The church bells in the Cathedral Ward may have once marked the hours, but now they tolled at irregular intervals. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact timing of the Mensis ritual, and the watchman to the Forbidden Woods had spoken to me despite being dried down to a leathery skeleton. So, you can understand my confusion in determining how long had passed since the three of us returned from trying to blow up the gates out of Central Yharnam.

In the time since we had come back, we'd stopped to eat again, exchanged some brief conversation, allowed Mergo to practice crawling around again, and sent Sean out on another supply and reconnaissance mission since Djura had been melting down a lot of our quicksilver bullets in a makeshift workshop he'd established near the tower.

Well, _sent_ was a strong word. Sean had volunteered to go on his own, with no apparent prompting. I felt bad that he seemed to be the one doing all the work around here, but he assured me he was going stir-crazy and needed to get up and do something for his own sanity. I was just thinking that I should have gone with him anyway, when he showed up at the doorway of the makeshift workshop as if he'd been summoned by the thought.

Sean's face and clothes were thickly smudged with dust, and he was breathing hard as if he'd run part of the way there. "Djura," he said in an urgent tone, causing the old hunter to look up from the molten metal he was pouring into a mold. "You need to come see this. There's something wrong with some of your beasts."

"What's the matter with them?" Djura asked, appearing to be torn between concern and suspicion.

"Something's been attacking them over by the church where that flayed poison dog was. Demetria, you killed that thing, right?"

"Yeah, I killed him," I replied. "I haven't been by the Church of the Good Chalice for a while, but I feel like Djura would know if there was something else living there."

"Stranger things could happen," Djura said. "One day, Paarl thought to escape from his graveyard and nearly climbed over the wall into Old Yharnam. This could be something similar, and I don't want a larger beast picking on the small fry." He stood up and set aside his work, leaving the new set of projectiles to cool. "You should stay here, Demetria," he continued in a darker tone. "Whatever this is, I can take care of it."

Before I could protest, Djura had picked up his stake driver and a firearm – I noticed he'd chosen to bring a small pistol rather than a gun more suited to large beasts - and gone off with Sean. I faintly heard Djura asking for clarification on how many beasts had been attacked, and whether they were dead or merely injured, as their voices faded off into the distance.

I was left alone with Mergo, who was, at the moment, asleep on a little bed of rags I had made for her on an unused table in the corner. She was beginning to handle being away from me a bit better, but only if I stayed somewhere in the same room. Still, I seemed to be irrevocably tied to her, and the men in our little group had interpreted that as a cue to start treating me like a fragile lady who should be accompanied everywhere and not allowed to go out on a hunt. I understood that it was important to protect Mergo, but some part of me still chafed against these restrictions.

I paced around the workshop, trying to be quiet to avoid waking the baby. I was impressed that Djura had cobbled together an entire forge and a relatively sophisticated-looking array of tools in this abandoned house in a deserted town. Though I'd developed the skills of basic weapon repair and modification in the Hunter's Dream with only Gehrman's cryptic advice to guide me, the function of many of these tools and implements was unknown to me. I stood around admiring them for a while, afraid to actually touch anything, and then sat down on the table beside Mergo and waited for the men to return.

I knew that the minutes could feel like hours when waiting for someone, but after a while it began to seem that altogether too much time was passing without Sean and Djura's return. Where could they be gone to for so long? It was only a few minutes' walk to the Church of the Good Chalice, and even if they encountered a new beast or other type of enemy there it shouldn't take them such a long time to defeat it. Not unless… The outcome of the battle had gone the other way. In that case, Djura wouldn't be coming back, _ever,_ and Sean would be returned to his own version of Yharnam with uncertain consequences.

All right, that did it. I couldn't keep sitting here stewing in my uncertainty. I stood up sharply from the table, which made Mergo stir in the beginnings of wakefulness. Wherever I went, I'd have to take her with me. I scooped up Mergo gently so as not to startle her, but I needed her to be at least somewhat awake so she would grip me of her own accord and allow me the use of both arms.

I left the workshop and headed in the direction of the Church of the Good Chalice, dodging the beasts that swarmed around me. As I got closer, I began to encounter larger wolves, more fully transformed than the beast-men infesting most of Old Yharnam. Most of them were freshly injured, bleeding from long slashes that looked as if they'd come from a sword. I wondered what Djura had thought of Sean hurting his beasts, but I figured those wolves were so savage and uncontrollable that even Djura would cut him some slack. A few of the wolves still rushed at me as I walked past, so I quickened my pace to a run and was just fast enough to avoid them in their weakened state.

As I approached the ruined church, I saw a few more beasts sprawled out in the wide plaza that led into the building. I could distinguish one of the large wolves and a few smaller beast-men, all bloody and unmoving. There was one figure, however, that looked different from the rest…

I took a few cautious steps forward, trying to get a better look at the scene. These beasts were torn up pretty badly, and a few of them were literally in pieces. But the cuts in their fur looked too clean, like butchery rather than attack by a larger beast. And something about the furthest figure in the distance still nagged at me.

As I got closer, I could see that it was not a beast at all, but a rather small man dressed in ashen hunter garb. I gasped and rushed forward to reach him, forgetting caution in my haste to confirm what I had already suspected.

Djura lay facedown and unmoving, one arm sprawled out to the side as if he'd been in the process of attacking someone with his Stake Driver when he fell. One side of his head was bloodied, but at least it didn't look like his skull was cracked entirely. I knelt down beside him to get a closer look, and was relieved to find that my most dismal expectations had been unfounded. Djura was still breathing, though shallowly, and he occasionally made small restless motions. So he was alive, then. But who or what had done this to him?

A terrible suspicion began to dawn inside of me. Surely, not. It couldn't be…


	12. Event Horizon

Author's Note: I am the worst fanfic author, it is me. I apologize for the angst in this chapter...

* * *

I stood up, realizing that I wasn't safe here, and an instant later the first bullet hit me in the back. I staggered forward, not expecting this kind of attack, but the hidden sniper was ready for that. The second volley of bullets came just as I was getting my bearings again, and this time they were aimed at Mergo where she'd been peeking out over my shoulder. The force of the gunshots dislodged her grip on my clothing, and she was thrown to the ground before I could catch her.

I whirled around to see Sean standing at some distance behind me, hefting his blunderbuss with a grim look on his face. He'd evidently been hiding in the dense undergrowth near the ruined church, waiting for his moment to strike. "Sorry about that," he said. "But we both know it has to be done."

"Sean," I gasped. "No… Why…" Even though I knew it was a terrible idea to turn your back on an enemy, I knelt down beside Mergo and cradled her broken body. She had been hit in several places, and her body offered so little resistance that the bullets simply tore holes through her torso. Despite this, the worst injury looked to be on her head, where most of the small tentacles had been severed. The stumps oozed a dark liquid that almost immediately began to pool underneath her. As I looked down in horror, her eyes flickered open, and I saw that their usual yellow color was shot through with an irregular web of red.

"You know, at first I felt bad about doing this," Sean said from behind me. "But then I realized that it's the only way out of here. Even if I leave your world, they'll just send me back. Killing you and Mergo is the only way I'll ever make it till morning. Don't look so surprised," he continued, shedding the last vestiges of his remorse. "I remember you used to know things! You were so damn smug about it, too. Telling your little jokes and smiling every time I walked into a trap. But now you're too blind to see what a mess you've made for both of us."

"I was just trying to help you," I said brokenly, tears welling up in my eyes and threatening to spill over. "I didn't mean to drag you into this too. But still, that doesn't justify -"

"That's what I thought at first. But then I realized you were laughing at me the whole time we cooperated. The whole thing was a game to you. But what about now, huh? Do you still think we're playing?"

I had just enough warning to let go of Mergo and spin around to meet Sean's blade with my own. Sword met axe with a thunderous clang, and I was driven backward by the sheer force of the blow. Sean had gotten so strong during his version of the Hunt, whereas I had merely amused myself with hunter tools and arcane magic. I now regretted not asking the Doll to channel my blood echoes into more physical prowess.

"Wait, Sean," I gasped, looking back at Mergo behind me. Through the connection we shared, I could tell she was still alive, but not for much longer. "Give me a minute, please, I need to –"

Sean denied my request with a slash of his sword, the Moonlight Blade trailing a blue glow in its wake.

"Please!" I begged him, intercepting his blow. "Just a second, then I'll fight you!"

"It doesn't work like that!" he called out as he thrust his blade forward. "Just let that ugly thing go!" He was gloating now, the bastard. "You're such a _lady_ ," he continued, twisting the word into something unpleasant. "Crying over babies and running from a fight. I don't even know how women can be hunters!"

"You're just bitter 'cause I didn't fall in love with you," I spat out as I dodged another blow from his sword. "Don't think I didn't see you flirting. But the hero doesn't always get the girl."

I was saying whatever came to mind, desperately trying to distract him while I got my wits about me, and it was working. Slowly, through dodging and sidestepping, I was getting him away from where Mergo lay. When I judged we were far enough, I went on the offensive, switching my axe into its short form and sending him a volley of quick diagonal slashes to penetrate his defenses.

I was fast, but Sean was faster. He blocked each one of my blows, and with a sinking feeling I realized that I had been truly outmatched. He had gone through nearly all of the same things I had on this night of the Hunt, though he'd walked out of them having learned different lessons. And now he was winning. I had managed to avoid getting hit by his sword for the most part, but the same could not be said for the blue flashes of arcane energy that emanated each time he swung the blade. The light was cold when it hit me, and yet somehow it burned. I was having trouble getting enough distance from him to even heal properly, and I soon gave up on trying to use blood vials because each time I tried to, he'd punish me with more damage before it had even kicked in.

Trying to think on my feet, I searched through my mental catalogue of weaponry before settling on the one thing that would give me more time. I jammed my left hand into my pocket and prayed, while furiously deflecting attacks with my right. Finally my fingers closed upon the Old Hunter's Bone, and my sense of time became slightly unstuck as the object took effect. From my perspective, Sean's movements were half a step slower, and I dodged and weaved through his attacks with much greater ease. I was able to stagger him with a hit to the head with the blunt side of my axe, and then I was gone before he could retaliate. I slammed him through the stomach with the spiked tip and danced away, then hit him again as he doubled over in pain. Just as we hit the turning point of the fight, the Old Hunter's Bone stopped working for me. I rubbed it again, but to no avail - I wouldn't be able to use it again for a short period of time. Sean grinned viciously as he saw what was happening, and he closed in on me to strike the killing blow.

Suddenly, I became of a movement behind me. In the process of trying to get Sean away from Mergo, I had inadvertently lured him toward the place where Djura lay unconscious. Only he was no longer unconscious now. I spared a brief glance behind me and saw him propped up on his forearms, eyes glinting with a steely determination. He put a finger to his lips in a _shh_ gesture, and I immediately jumped in front of him to hide him from view.

Sean seemed to notice nothing, intent as he was on slashing me to ribbons. I let him graze me with the sword a few times and then suddenly went limp and fell to the side, confusing him as he hadn't thought I was that badly hurt. Still, he leaned down toward me, still trying to pound me into the ground… At least, until Djura chose his moment to strike. He cocked his stake driver and lunged forward, firing the full force of the projectile into Sean as he rushed forward. The force arrested Sean's forward momentum, and the metal stake punched a sizable hole through his chest.

At first, Sean didn't seem to realize what had happened. He shook himself off and rushed me again, and I had to scramble to defend myself because I had been expecting the fight to be over already. After realizing that his attempts to hit me had become increasingly uncoordinated, Sean looked down and saw the extent of the damage. He reached for a blood vial and I intercepted the motion, slashing downward with the axe so hard that it took his hand clean off at the wrist. He looked confused for a second, then staggered back as the effects of Djura's attack finally caught up with him. Sean's last act in my world was one of defiance, spitting blood in my direction, before he finally pitched forward and collapsed in a heap on the broken cobblestones. He lay there for a second, unmoving, before his body shimmered and disappeared back to wherever he'd come from.

"That won't be the last of him," Djura said, standing up stiffly and massaging the lump on his skull.

"He better not show his face here again," I spat as I limped urgently toward where Mergo still lay. Maybe, if I got there soon enough, there would still be enough time…

The puddle of blood around Mergo was larger now, and she lay unmoving at the center of it as I went to my knees beside her. I took off my gloves and touched her face gently, trying to elicit some kind of response. Just one eye opened this time, still yellow with streaks of red. She opened her mouth and tried to make a sound, but all that came out was a soft croaking.

"Shh, Mergo, I'm here," I assured her. "You'll be okay, I promise." I reached into my pockets in search of blood and bandages, only to realize that I was somehow out of both. Instead, I ripped off a part of my own clothing, sacrificing the half-cape that hung off one shoulder. I tried to work quickly to cover some of the worst bullet wounds, but Mergo no longer protested.

"I'm sorry, Demetria, but this doesn't look good," Djura observed, standing over my shoulder.

"You're no doctor," I retorted. "Thanks for your help, but just leave me alone." I knew I was being terribly rude, but the urgency of the situation was making me snappy, and now Mergo was not moving at all… I gasped as I realized this, suddenly rethinking my priorities, and pulled out the tiny Cainhurst dagger from where it hung at my back. I was about to cut open the palm of my hand, when all of the sudden the blood echoes hit me like a punch in the gut, and I just _knew_.

"No…" I moaned, feeling sick to my stomach. I made the cut anyway, and my blood dripped down to mingle with Mergo's on the dusty ground. "You can't just die like that!" I yelled at her still body. "Not after all I've done for you!" I held my bleeding hand in front of her face, hoping for a reaction, but I knew in my heart that it was already too late.

I closed my eyes and held my face in my hands, feeling like I could start sobbing at any moment, but the tears never came. There was just a twisting feeling in my insides and a silent scream bubbling up in my throat. Even though my eyes were shut, I became keenly aware of Djura standing awkwardly behind me, trying to figure out the best way to approach.

"I'm so sorry - " he began, but I cut him off almost instantly.

"Sorry doesn't matter," I hissed, my voice coming out hoarse and dissonant and somehow _wrong_. "What matters is stopping the one who started this mess. Sean was crazy, but he got forced into this. The Moon Presence is the one that really wanted Mergo dead."

I stood up abruptly and strode past Djura, heading in the direction of the lantern that led back into the Dream. I had the overwhelming sense that the world had tilted off its axis, and I needed to set it right again. Maybe, if I killed the Moon Presence, I could somehow bring Mergo back again…

The old hunter followed me, keeping pace with my steps and trying to dissuade me. "You need to rest first," he pleaded. "You must be injured, and you don't look well. Take a moment and consider your next move."

I found it ironic that someone else had to tell me to stop and think, when usually I was the one who overthought things in the first place. But the thing is, in the scant moments since Mergo had left us, I _had_ thought this through. The plan flashed before my eyes with an unshakable certainty - I would convince the lantern to let me back into the dream, I would slay the Moon Presence, and then I would meet whatever fate had in store for me. Whenever I tried to imagine what would happen after defeating the Great One, I came up against a blank wall - an event horizon, beyond which lay possibilities that I could not comprehend.

"Demetria," Djura tried again. "Look at your hands."

I held my hands up to get a better look as I continued walking. My skin was deathly pale, like a corpse's. The cut on my palm had stopped bleeding already, but seemed to gape open wider than it should have. And, in other places, the skin was peeling off in strips wherever it had come into contact with Mergo's blood.

I noted all of this with an odd sense of detachment. I felt oddly disconnected from my own body, and I realized that I no longer cared what would happen to me. In the short time she'd been with us, Mergo had become my goal, my reason for making it through this hunt alive. If it turned out that I couldn't bring her back, then the least I could do was get revenge for what had been done.


	13. Ascension

When I reached the lantern, I didn't bother to try lighting it the usual way. Grasping its metal stem, I sensed the gate between the dimensions, clamped down tight to keep me out. I pushed against it with all my might, flexing muscles I never knew I had had against the invisible barrier.

I heard Djura in the distance, yelling at me to stop, for the love of all that was good, before I was torn apart. "Look at yourself!" His voice was frantic, but it came as though from a great distance.

I felt the barrier shift, falter, and then give way entirely. My physical body shimmered and disappeared, and then I was through.

As soon as I materialized in the Hunter's Dream, I was up and angry and pacing around the gravestones.

"All right, you bastard," I called out, my voice echoing oddly in the seemingly empty courtyard. "Come on out and fight!"

My shout woke up the Doll, who had been sleeping on her usual shelf of rock beneath the workshop. "Oh!" She gasped when she saw me. "Are you all right, Good Hunter? Does it hurt?"

At first I didn't understand what she was referring to. I was always healed from my wounds whenever I returned to the Dream, but I supposed it was not beyond the Moon Presence to stop offering me this courtesy. And sure enough, the skin on my hands was still hanging in strips, although it was neither painful nor bleeding. There was only red flesh beneath the wounds; red, and perhaps a flash of something darker beneath.

"I'm all right," I said, trying to smile calmingly, but my face felt numb and I thought I could feel the corners of my lips splitting open. The Doll looked alarmed rather than reassured.

"Now where's that ugly creature?" I growled, my anger flaring up again.

The Doll squeaked - yes, literally squeaked- in alarm and stepped backward. Then she seemed to gather herself, and said; "Flora is here, Good Hunter. She awaits your presence, so go to her. No matter what happens, I will be here for you."

I thanked her, feeling bad for taking out my anger with the Moon Presence at her, and then stalked off in the direction of the previously-locked graveyard and the Great Tree.

The Moon Presence - or Flora, as the Doll had called her - was there waiting for me. She stood on all fours and bristled like an angry cat, her head tentacles and "tails" lashing in every direction.

"So you got what you wanted," I said to her "You've killed a defenseless baby. Are you happy now?"

Her tense posture indicated that no, she was not. Whereas before this thing had been fixated on Mergo, I could tell that the focus of her attention had now shifted to me.

I grinned a challenge at the Moon Presence, deliberately showing far too many teeth. I could feel the mask of humanity slipping, though I didn't know if a beast or something even more horrible ultimately lay beneath.

The Great One issued her own challenge, in the form of a staticky screech that seemed to warp the very reality around us. Everything in the Dream glowed painfully white for a moment, and I was suddenly struck with a vision of the Formless Oedon rune being forcibly sanded off a wall.

"You don't like him, huh? Trying to keep his kids from threatening your power? Well guess what, Flora. You've wasted so much time worrying about baby Great Ones that now you're about to get destroyed by a human, and there's nothing you can do about it."

What was this newfound confidence? I wasn't feeling or sounding like myself at the moment, but it was too late to turn back now. The challenge had been issued, and now I needed to back it up.

Flora laughed at me as I threw down my axe and pulled out the Tonitrus instead. I had no idea how I knew she was laughing, but she gave off the impression of amusement all the same.

I rushed at her with an avenging fury, battering at her hindquarters and skeletal torso. The Great One simply jumped up into the air to avoid me, and I quickly ran in the other direction in an attempt to dodge her landing.

I was mostly successful, but Flora's claws caught me along the arm and nearly knocked me to the ground. I straightened up, cursing, but the pain never came. Instead of waiting for it, I ran at the Moon Presence again, this time targeting its head with those awful misshapen features.

She clapped a hand over her face and attempted to drain my life like she had in our last battle. I was weakened, but not defeated, and I managed to hit her back several times before the spell ended, which countered its effects and gave me back some of my strength.

Flora recoiled and seemed to vomit, releasing showers of blood that splattered in every direction. I was hit by one and felt the frenzy start to build, but then it sputtered out into nothing. Had I finally crossed some kind of line of arcane knowledge beyond which Frenzy did not matter?

Clearly Flora expected her blood to affect me, so she was caught off guard when I rushed her again and punished her with the Tonitrus. We circled each other several times, each a hunter stalking her prey, and I aggravated her so much that she started grabbing and clawing at me like no more than a beast.

In her last moments, the Moon Presence threw all her magic at me, draining my life and preventing me from healing myself. I hit her once more before I fell backward, but it was just enough damage to end the battle for good.

Blue sparks from my weapon crackled up and down the Great One's body as she fell and dissolved into a writhing black cloud, and then into nothingness. Tiny drops of black liquid showered me as I lay among the flowers. I tried to be happy that I had defeated the creator of the Dream, but I felt only hollowness in my victory. Even the blood echoes from my slain foe, when they came, felt like an unwelcome surge of alien energy that I did not know what to do with.

I tried to stand, but found that my legs would no longer obey my commands. Instead I managed to flip over onto my stomach and started crawling, dragging myself through the soft grass handful by handful. My hands weren't in much better shape than my legs; my fingers felt oddly brittle and several nails snapped off as I dragged myself out of the graveyard and onto the main path within the Dream.

As I reached the little gully near the messengers' bath, I found that the Doll was not there to channel my echoes as I had hoped, but I could crawl no more. All my muscles spasmed with odd currents of energy that seemed to run through me at random, and I curled in on myself as I wished for it all to just end.

My vision was the first thing to go as I felt my eyes liquefy in their sockets. Bones crunched and fragmented, but I could no longer feel any pain. My consciousness seemed to be shifting, drawing inward. Was this what it was like to really, truly die?

I could no longer feel or see or speak, and yet I heard the distant voice of the Doll praying for my success in battle up at Maria's grave. Her voice gave me strength and made me feel almost peaceful in the final moments of my physical body. This felt somehow natural now, like a kind of apoptosis - leaves, curling up and gently drifting away from a tree.

As the last of my human flesh fell away from around me, I squirmed out from the chest cavity of my former body and tasted the air with a dozen new appendages. I still had no eyes, but who needed eyes to see? With my new senses, the world was close and overwhelming, every molecule simultaneously vying for my attention.

Never mind dying.

Was this what it was like to be born?


	14. Epilogue: The Harrowing of Mensis

Author's Note:

And so, it finally ends. I've had a great time writing this story, and I really appreciate the people who have favorited or left reviews on this fanfic. This has made me get excited about writing again, and I may continue this series with another story about Demetria and friends in the future. I've already written some drabbles and random things in this universe, and I have a headcanon of what Yharnam would be like after the events of Bloodborne.

* * *

I tore through the Wet Nurse like a knife through butter. The fight had been easy before, but now it was laughable. The thing wasn't really much more than a bundle of rags, animated by some kind of astral projection that had been cut off from its original owner. A clever construct, really. I was still far from being able to replicate it. If this was Oedon's work, then it may well be the closest I'd get to my absent father.

Really, Oedon had outdone himself. As the Wet Nurse dissipated, I could see the fading connection between it and Mergo, and the remnants of a network that connected it to all its manifestations in other worlds, allowing it to siphon off and transfer the energy absorbed whenever another one of them killed a hunter. And the sound of the baby crying was generated by the Wet Nurse too, not Mergo herself as I had previously thought…

But I was getting distracted again. If I'd been a bit of a daydreamer before, it was nothing compared to how many different trains of thought I had going now. Maybe someday I'd get better at splitting my awareness, but for now I had to focus on the task at hand.

I moved toward the center of the courtyard. Even before my body reached the carriage, I'd been reaching out for Mergo almost unconsciously, but had received no reply. Was I too late? If she was dead already, then in the next world I would keep the Nurse alive longer, or maybe -

I stopped short in front of the carriage. Stared down into Mergo's six glowing yellow eyes. She blinked at me, the tentacles on her head moving against the cushion. Physically, she was alive and well, looking just as she had when I'd last seen her in my own world. But if I examined her with the new senses I had developed since my rebirth, I could see that in some ways she had barely been alive at all.

Mergo had no astral body. Or, if she did, she'd been born unable to use it, and it had withered away until barely anything was left. If Oedon was formless, then his daughter had nothing but form to fall back on. Even as a newborn, I could send and receive thoughts and images in a sort of rudimentary telepathy, and I'd given the Doll no end of trouble by moving and levitating random objects in the Hunter's Dream. But I had never seen Mergo do any of these things, and now I knew why.

I tried to imagine what would happen if she continued existing - she would grow larger, learn to crawl and then walk, refine her vestigial ability to induce frenzy... She'd be forever dependent on blood for survival; blood, and energy from more proper Great Ones. And she was fragmented, lacking any true connection to her counterparts in other worlds. The Mergo I was saving here would not be aware that there were others like her, languishing in their own universes until a hunter came to end them. If Mergo lived, she would forever be a child, unable to take her place in the cosmos. She was a broken thing, and it might actually be cruel to keep her alive like this.

Despite all this, I found myself unable to just walk away from her pleading gaze. Mergo was my sister now; wasn't it my duty to take care of her? And, thinking past such petty human concepts, it might be entertaining to see how far she could go and what things we could do together. I was basically a child again, and didn't every little girl want a doll to play with?

I reached down with one of my many limbs and plucked her out of the carriage, feeling the way she clumsily tried to shift her connection from the Wet Nurse to myself. I met her halfway, trying to be gentle as I linked myself to her lifeline. Last time, she'd somehow managed this on her own, which must have been at the very edge of her abilities. Mergo relaxed against me, closing her eyes and seeming to sigh. I cradled her close to my body, retracting the claws I had used to shred the Wet Nurse and softening my armored flesh to create a friendlier environment for her.

 _You're safe now, Mergo,_ I said, though I was afraid she couldn't hear or understand my silent communication. _It's time to go home_.

* * *

Author's Note:

So, this chapter went through a rather interesting evolution. My original idea was that Mergo would die permanently, and that would be that. But after realizing how much I actually felt bad about killing her off, it made me think... would Demetria really let her go that easily? She'd really just let Mergo stay dead, considering how powerful she is now and how upset she'd been about Mergo's death?

So the re-write of this chapter came out of that thought, and I hope it's not too much of a cop-out to "resurrect" her. I was also a bit nervous about keeping Demetria as the narrative character in this chapter (Seriously, could you imagine Lovecraft stories from the perspective of Cthulhu?) but I'd like to think that she's not completely incomprehensible or unreachable yet. Maybe for at least a bit of time after her ascension she'd remain human-like enough that we'd understand something written from her perspective.


End file.
